It’s not often I walk out on the beach and there are the birds I’m looking for. The oystercatcher Mom and juvenile were feeding right next to a snowy egret along the shoreline at Fort Desoto.
There were two juveniles with the parents and each one stayed close to a parent. The babies were almost as big as the parent but their feathers were not as black, their beaks were not as bright red and they didn’t have those beautiful yellow eyes yet. I sat down on the sand and watched the parents get some icky blob and feed it to the little ones over and over.
It was hard to get the entire family in one shot. I walked back on the beach a bit and was able to get both parents feeding the babies.
A couple of times the babies were able to find their own breakfast. They were watching everything Mom and Dad were doing.
They kept moving along the shoreline, staying busy eating.
At one point another bird came close and one of the parents flew off and chased it away. Here you can see that this one is banded with a red AE. She is the Mom and was banded in Georgia back in 2012. She has been a regular at Fort Desoto since then. The babies were born on Shell Key and didn’t make it over to the main beach here until they were old enough to fly over with their parents in early July.
They spent a long time feeding and I finally left. All of the above were taken with my 400mm lens and cropped up.